Iraq Electoral Commission Sets 5 Conditions for Holding Polls

President Barham Salih meets with UN envoy to Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert. (Twitter)
President Barham Salih meets with UN envoy to Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert. (Twitter)
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Iraq Electoral Commission Sets 5 Conditions for Holding Polls

President Barham Salih meets with UN envoy to Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert. (Twitter)
President Barham Salih meets with UN envoy to Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert. (Twitter)

Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission announced on Monday five conditions to hold early parliamentary elections in June 2021.

It issued a statement shortly after the country’s highest Shiite authority, Ali al-Sistani, voiced his support for holding the polls during a meeting with United Nations envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.

The Commission said it welcomed Sistani’s position, saying it will be ready to stage the elections “once its conditions, which it has frequently stipulated, are met.”

It demanded that the parliament approve an electoral law “as soon as possible” and that it complete the legislation of the Federal Supreme Court. It also demanded that the government prepare the budget to hold the elections and that it approve the appointment of general directors elected by the Board of Commissioners. It also called on the United Nations and other concerned international organizations to assist in the electoral process and provide the necessary supervision to ensure that they are transparent.

President Barham Salih expressed his support for Sistani’s stance.

“Next year’s elections are fateful and must meet the necessary conditions that allow its results to be credible,” he said after receiving Hennis-Plasschaert in the city of al-Sulaymaniyah on Sunday.

He also stressed the need to implement the government’s policy statement in achieving social justice, cracking down on criminals, combating corruption, boosting the security forces and restoring the authority of the state and limiting the possession of arms to it.

Salih said the elections can be held once the electoral law is approved. Such a law should ensure real representation of all Iraqis and reflects their will to freely elect their representatives.

The results of the polls will consequently reflect the people’s desire for change and ensure that they are properly represented in government and at parliament, he added.

Another important element of the elections is ensuring that they are transparent, he remarked, stressing the need to take strict measures that thwart any voter fraud.

Sistani said on Sunday that the upcoming elections “are of great importance.”

Iraqis should be encouraged to participate "widely," he added, while warning that failing to hold the polls on time or in a free and fair way would "threaten the unity and future of Iraq's people."

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi had announced in late July that Iraq would hold parliamentary elections nearly a year early, seeking to make good on one of the main promises he made when he came to power earlier this year.

On whether the elections will meet the people’s expectations, MP Aras Habib Karim told Asharq Al-Awsat: “The conditions set by Sistani demand all parties, forces and blocs to adopt them as a roadmap.”

“Everyone must commit to these conditions,” he added, while also highlighting the Commission’s demands.

Head of Iraq’s Advisory Council, Farhad Alaaldin, appeared skeptical over the polls, predicting the political powers will resort to stalling despite Sistani’s clear backing of the elections.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat the elections will likely be held in 2021, but they will probably be postponed to the fall.



Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
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Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a "live-streamed genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with "specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide".

Israel has rejected accusations of "genocide" from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.

The conflict erupted after the Palestinian group Hamas's deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Hamas also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground operation that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,243 dead.

"Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide," Amnesty's secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.

"States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools," she added.

'Extreme levels of suffering'

Gaza's civil defense agency said early Tuesday that four people were killed and others injured in an Israeli air strike on displaced persons' tents near the Al-Iqleem area in Southern Gaza.

The agency earlier warned fuel shortages meant it had been forced to suspend eight out of 12 emergency vehicles in Southern Gaza, including ambulances.

The lack of fuel "threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelter centers," it said in a statement.

Amnesty's report said the Israeli campaign had left most of the Palestinians of Gaza "displaced, homeless, hungry, at risk of life-threatening diseases and unable to access medical care, power or clean water".

Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had "documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks".

It said Israel's actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 percent of Gaza's population, and "deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe".

Even as protesters hit the streets in Western capitals, "the world's governments individually and multilaterally failed repeatedly to take meaningful action to end the atrocities and were slow even in calling for a ceasefire".

Meanwhile, Amnesty also sounded alarm over Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, and repeated an accusation that Israel was employing a system of "apartheid".

"Israel's system of apartheid became increasingly violent in the occupied West Bank, marked by a sharp increase in unlawful killings and state-backed attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians," it said.

Heba Morayef, Amnesty director for the Middle East and North Africa region, denounced "the extreme levels of suffering that Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to endure on a daily basis over the past year" as well as "the world's complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it".